ARCH 0680 at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown

Archives

All posts for the month March, 2012

Spending her spring break in Ireland, Hadley has shared a post about a holy well she’s encountered!:

During my travels in Ireland, I was driving through County Clare and saw a sign for Saint Brigid’s Well. Remembering the name as one of the Holy Wells of Ireland, I pulled over to take a look. Later in town, when I was asking the locals about more information on the well, I found out that “Saint Brigid’s Well” is actually a misnomer. This is because there are, in fact, two wells, each just outside of Kildare in Co. Clare and about a mile apart. (So of course I had to jump back in the car and track down the second one). The reason they both are considered “St. Brigid’s Well” is because they both emanate from the same spring, considered to be holy and healing. The “healing” properties of this spring, however, are in much debate. This is because the well doesn’t incorporate just one, or even two, religions. Saint Brigid’s Well is the site of three different denominations: Christianity, Paganism, and Druidism.

This all began with St. Brigid herself. According to Celtic belief, Brigid was one of three daughters and part of the Tuatha De Danann, the race of gods and demigods of Irish mythology. She was known as the Goddess of the Sacred Flame of Kildare and associated with elevated thought, such as philosophy, wisdom, and most importantly, healing. However, due to inadequate written records, when the spring became first associated with her remains unclear. It is also unclear when Irish mythology in antiquity can be considered Paganism and when it can be considered Druidism since so little is known about the Druids. However, references to Brigid can be found associated with both.

Finally, enter Christianity. It is no secret that much of modern Christian practices originated from the attempted assimilations of non-monotheistic religions, such as Paganism, that worshiped primarily nature-based deities, and Druidism, that believed in the immortality of the soul, and Brigid is no exception. As Christianity was forced on the Celts, Brigid of the Tuatha De Danann became St. Brigid of Kildare, the story claiming she had been born in a Druid slave family, but could never eat what was brought to her because they were so impure. She supposedly performed many miracles, the majority of which involved healing, and was called the “Mary of the Gaels.”

This dual-religious worship is still seen at the well today. Christian worshipers asking for healing follow very specific instructions, including when and where to kneel, which prayers to say, how many times, etc. However, the only things generally left are rosaries (seen in the picture which her statue). The Pagan worshipers, on the other hand, to this day still leave many votives and offerings, most notably ribbons. According to Pagan belief, healing occurs upon proper offering, followed by drinking of the water. I won’t include both the Pagan and Christian rituals specifically since it’s rather long, but here’s the link to its Wikipedia; its history of the well is lacking but at the bottom is a good explanation of the ritual (please note that it is not perfect in that they’ve combined both the Christian and Pagan rituals).

I was looking online at the news, the BBC as usual, and I found this interesting story that reminded me much of the conflict we studied a few weeks back.
A Chinese mining company is planning to operate a large, open-cast copper mine in Ecuador and has received government support for this project. In strong opposition, Conaie, the largest organization of indigenous Ecuadorians, recently began a two-week-long march across the country in protest. The native peoples claim that the mine will result in contaminated groundwater, environmental destruction, and the forced removal of people from their land.
The government has accused the protestors of inciting unwarranted hatred of the government in an attempt to destabilize the country and seize power. Thousands of protesters have also shown up to support the plan, as they believe the country needs to develop alternative sources of employment and revenue to supplement the dominant oil export industry.
This is a hotly contested issue, and there seem to be valid arguments on both sides, but it all depends on what considerations you weigh more heavily. Personally, I do not believe in sacrificing the environment and people’s sources of health and life (fresh water) for an industry that will likely export most of its products and pay low wages to workers.
I think the concern is a legitimate one, and I was wondering what you all thought about it.
See you tomorrow,

Nile mosaic (Barberini mosaic) from the Sanctuary of Fortuna at Praeneste, Italy. Dated to the last quarter of the second century BCE.

After today’s lecture, I did a little digging on the Nile mosaics from Praeneste(modern Palestrina, Italy). The most famous, for both its size and its quality, is the Barberini mosaic, pictured here. It is so called because it was removed from the complex in the 17th century by the Barberini family (and has suffered subsequently!). It was located in a complex of structures behind the forum at Praeneste and below the terraces of the great Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia.

View of the sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste, Italy. The sanctuary dates to the second century BCE.

The mosaic was on the apse, the curved ceiling, at one end of a hall in this lower complex of the Sanctuary. The apse is described by Dunbabin as ‘grotto-like’ (1999: 49), and “in its original setting, water seeping through the rock would have covered the surface [of the mosaic], enhancing the effect of fluidity” (Dunbabin 1999: 50-51). How cool is that, that the very materiality of the mosaic’s presentation was self-referential?

The composition of the mosaic is not just a highlight of scenes from Egyptian life, but even reflects contemporary conventions of displaying the cardinal directions from a birds’-eye view, with south at the top as was the custom in ancient maps (Meyboom 1995: 43). While a varying number of interpretations of the mosaic have been set forth (and you can read about them in more detail in the sources I’ve provided, below), it is generally agreed that there are two distinct parts to the mosaic: the upper part depicting (surprise!) Upper Egypt and the Nile’s origins in the heartland of Africa, and the lower part various scenes of Lower Egypt and the Delta.

In the upper part a mountainous landscape is populated by Ethiopians hunting, and by a variety of exotic animals, most identified by their names in Greek. In the lower half, the water spreads out widely to suggest the NIle at the time of its annual flood, celebrated in Egypt with great festivities. Islands above the surface of the water support various buildings, among them a typical Egyptian temple, its entrance flanked by pylons, and a temple in Greek style, with white-robed priests, obelisks, and a round well probably meant for a Nilometer… the water between is full of boats: the small curved boats of the peasants made of bundles of papyrus, and larger merchant-ships, while a hunting party in a more luxurious vessel attacks a group of crocodiles and hippopotamus… Finally two scenes at the bottom show an open-air drinking party beside the water under a pergola [projecting roof or arbor], suggesting the luxurious life of the Delta, and a temple in its enclosure among trees. In front of the temple, under an awning, a group of soldiers assembles, while to one side a procession of priests approaches through a kiosk, carrying a sacred object (Dunbabin 1999: 50).

Detail of the top center of the Barberini mosaic: Pygmies fighting cranes, and two fantastic animals (including the nabous, a word, transcribed by Pliny and translated as the Ethiopian term for giraffe, otherwise known only to this mosaic.)

Detail of the bottom left of the Barberini mosaic, depicting a drinking party next to the waters of the Nile in the Delta, under a pergola, a projecting roof or arbor.

The mosaic depicts a different form of Nilometer than the one I showed you in Wednesday’s lecture: this one, being round, resembles other Nilometers that have been discovered archaeologically.

Detail of the round well probably meant for a Nilometer in the scenes from Lower Egypt in the Barberini mosaic.

Excavated round Nilometer, dating to the New Kingdom.

If you want to read up more on the Barberini/Nile Mosaic, I’d start here:

If you have access to artstor.org (which you should, through the Rockefeller Library), you can find good detail images of the mosaic.

NOTA BENE: If you want to pursue the notion of Egypt as a watery place, I encourage you to check out the recent article “Searching for the Venice of the Nile” from the New Scientist, which describes archaeologist Angus Graham and the Egypt Exploration Society of London’s recent attempts to uncover whether the Karnak temple complex was really on an island in the middle of the Nile, instead of situated on the riverbank as previously assumed. They are asking questions such as “If the waterways existed, did they operate all year round or just during flood season? Were they also used to transport supplies, including the immense stones used to build the temples?” to make sense of the landscape as a whole, including both sides of the Nile and the relationship with the ancient capital at Thebes.